Congress asks the Government to collaborate with the Canary Islands in providing healthcare to migrants

Eduardo González The Plenary Session of the Congress has urged the central Government to collaborate with the Canary Islands Government in providing healthcare to migrants arriving on the archipelago's coasts, a task that “is currently borne alone by the autonomous community”. The motion was approved after the rejection of an amendment by Vox in which any mention of the health problem was removed and it was urged to declare as a “situation of interest to National Security” the “terrorist threat infiltrated through illegal immigration flows”. The motion, presented by the Mixed Parliamentary Group at the request of Cristina Valido, from Coalición Canaria, recalls that, “for more than a year, the Canary Islands have been facing a sustained growth in migratory flows in an intense and constant way, which is representing a significant effort for the Canarian health system, which allocates professionals, infrastructures and material resources to the humanitarian and assistance aid that these migrants need without the Government of Spain compensating for all the budgetary imbalances generated by medical care”. The Government of the Canary Islands, the text continues, “has been assuming full responsibility for the effort of health care for the migrant population that arrives on the islands in precarious boats, and it does so through the budget of the Canarian Health Service, which only between the months of January and October of this year 2024 has had to allocate more than 22 million euros to cover health and social care for migrants”. For this reason, he continues, “the Government of the Canary Islands has already constantly communicated this circumstance to the Ministry of Health to demand the necessary reinforcement of the agreement with the Red Cross for health care, given that the migratory situation in the Canary Islands and the demand for care required by people arriving on the island coasts cannot be ignored.” “The Canary Islands Health Service has already established a protocol for health care for the arrival of thousands of migrants to be assisted, both on their arrival on the coasts of the archipelago and in the reception centres and, if necessary, the referral of migrants to hospitals when they require a specialised approach to their health, as well as to the child population, which is included in the Healthy Child programme of the Canary Islands Health Service,” he assures. “The Government of the Canary Islands continues and will continue to work on the ground to provide a response and dignified care to migrants arriving on the islands, but it is indisputable that the autonomous community of the Canary Islands needs the decisive support of the State to share the weight of the social, health and economic effort derived from the arrival of boats with migrants to the islands,” it adds. For all these reasons, the motion asks the Government of Spain to “agree with the Government of the Canary Islands on the extraordinary financing that involves the health care of migrants arriving on the Canary coasts, the southern border of the State, assuming its powers in migration matters, which is currently borne alone by the autonomous community of the Canary Islands on practically all of its islands.” The text was approved by the plenary session of Congress on February 12. The motion received only one amendment, specifically from the far-right party Vox, which completely erased the initial proposal and called on the central government to declare “the immigration crisis and the terrorist threat infiltrated through illegal immigration flows heading to Spain as a situation of interest to National Security, due to the serious risks that both entail for the security of our country.”

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